Firings have already started.

Negotiate your severance!

According to CareerProtection.com's Kirk Nemer, companies are willing to bribe laid-off employees with a fatter severance package to make sure they go quietly. That means you can negotiate. Here are some tips for doing that.

The layoffs hit the product division, marketing, research, and international.

Ex-Yahoo: enjoy your unexpected vacation. Really.

Reader Matthew Taylor:

"Before all the anti-Yahoo! trolls flood the comments here, I would like to say as a former Yahoo! employee that I had an excellent time working at the company. A lot of former employees have negative things to say about the people working at Yahoo! but I've had the opposite experience. Yahoo! has a lot of very talented engineers who'll need to find new jobs today, so before you join the hipster ranks and go spewing bile all over the internet about how uncool Yahoo! is, please take into consideration all the very valuable folks currently working there.

To those who are being laid off today, I wish all of you the best! I know you will get an excellent severance package, so take advantage of your surprise vacation, and make this a positive change in your career."

Ross Levinsohn's empire expands.

Is Blake Irving out?

Swisher wonders: "One big question mark is how Chief Product Officer Irving fits in the possible new org, in which the new units get control of their product development. Irving has reportedly had several incoming job offers, although it is not clear if he has responded to that interest."

Thompson's letter to employees

Today we are restructuring Yahoo! to give ourselves the opportunity to compete and win in our core business. The changes we’re announcing today will put our customers first, allow us to move fast, and to get stuff done. The outcome of these changes will be a smaller, nimbler, more profitable Yahoo! better equipped to innovate as fast as our customers and our industry require.

Over the last 60 days, we’ve fundamentally re-thought every part of our business and we will continue to actively consider all options that allow Yahoo! to put maximum effort where we can succeed. As part of this process, I believe we have to focus to win in a select group of core businesses globally:

Core Media and Communications: Our content, media, and communications experiences must be best in class. That includes getting today’s core properties right and innovating on a next generation of great product experiences across all screens.∙

Platforms: We must make our core platforms and systems a genuine strength for Yahoo! – platforms that we can really leverage to support our massive scale, drive the deepest personalization, and boost speed to market.∙

Data: Our massive data sets must become a genuine competitive advantage for Yahoo!. We have to unlock the value in our data to allow us to really understand our 700 million users, encourage and win their engagement and trust, leverage everything they do with us to more fully personalize their experiences, and to give our advertisers the immediate insights they are rightfully demanding.

We are intensifying our efforts on our core businesses and redeploying resources to our most urgent priorities. Our goal is to get back to our core purpose – putting our users and advertisers first – and we are moving aggressively to achieve that goal.

Unfortunately, reaching that goal requires the tough decision to eliminate jobs, which means losing colleagues and parting with friends. Today, we will begin the process of informing employees about these changes. As part of that effort, approximately 2,000 people will be notified of job elimination or a phased transition. We value our people and for those who will be leaving, we thank you for all you have contributed to Yahoo!. We will treat all of our people with dignity and respect, providing resources to help manage through their transition.

Change is never easy. But the time has come to move Yahoo! forward aggressively with increased focus and accountability. Our values have always been about treating all Yahoos with dignity and respect, and today is a day to embrace those values. This is an amazing company with exceptionally talented people and I know we will all do our best to encourage each other through this difficult period of transition.

AppStack wants to hire ex-Yahoos

Yahoos in Bangalore get ready for cuts

"I am from Bangalore, we gonna get it tomorrow morning. I got high rating as well as a promotion but it counts for nothing when there is tsunami looming. I got a bottle of whiskey for tonight.. Keeping my finger crossed."

"Biting my nails"

Scott Thompson chewed out Yahoo execs last night

Swisher reports: "At an internal meeting with top staff last night, Thompson — who has gotten what seems to be a well-deserved reputation for chewing folks out at Yahoo — was more direct with the execs gathered, berating them extensively for not delivering and getting the company to this sorry point."

WANTED: Yahoo PR people

A restless night for Yahoos at Bangalore, India

From an email: "We at Yahoo! Bangalore are having a restless night. The axe will go down on us tomorrow morning. Most of us are logged in on messenger and trying to find out which of our US counterparts got axed."